WEEK FOUR

June 13, 2003-Brrr!

One of the reasons we travel is to escape the blistering Texas summer heat. So far this trip we have been imminently successful in that area.

Lucky Friday the 13^th is here again and once more it is lucky for me. Last night I told you that it was snowing and sleeting as well as raining. Well this morning when we woke it was 40 degrees but it been colder and it had snowed. Onie will insert a picture somewhere here to show the Marlin sitting in a little of the white stuff, for all you doubting Thomas’s.

I would have liked to watch it snow but my hearing couldn’t detect the little white flakes landing on the roof. I slept right through it but who knows, as soon as Onie posts week three on the website we are headed further north so we may get to see more and watch the little guys fall right from the sky.

We are resetting our clocks but our bodies are going to have to adjust on their own to the new time. Fortunately we only have one more time change in the near future. When we get to Alaska we lose another hour.

After Onie does her web thing and we breakfast we will be on the road again. If the road conditions hold we will try to get to Summit Lake or north of there. The road conditions tend to deteriorate from here north so we will have to let that be the determining factor as to how far we go in a day.

Breakfast is over and Onie is getting ready to go to the modem.

I just had a flash from the past; I heard a motorcycle go by. Ah for the good old days of traveling on two wheels through the heat, rain and snow. It is the only way to travel.

Raindrops keep falling on my head as I get in the shorelines and wash the dirt and grit off the toad. I think I see some sleet but who knows and more importantly, who cares? I started the Cummins before I went outside in hopes of gaining a little engine heat by road time but half an hour later it still shows less than 100 degrees.

Parked in front of the Pink Mountain RV Park and Lodge I’m waiting for Onie. I know things aren’t going well for her because she has been gone way to long.

While I wait I’ll just slip the tow cover on the toad, now that I have it clean. I get the cold stiff thing out of the cardboard box it has lived in since we got it. It has the texture and pliability of the skin of an alligator that has been dead ten or twelve days, that is to say it is rough and doesn’t bend. I laid it on the ground and jumped up and down on it for twenty or thirty minutes and then I thought I saw a place it had begun to bend. Heat from diesel exhaust is not very hot but it was over 45 degrees and perhaps it will lend some life to this piece of uncooperative plastic. Right now I’m thinking it would have been a boon if the border guards had confiscated this thing as a lethal weapon since it has done everything except stomp on me. Finally it begins to bend a little and I start thinking that perhaps we should have tried this thing on in some 99-degree Texas weather. It would have been limp as a dishrag. The instructions flew out of the box like an uncaged bird and lit in a mud puddle. I retrieved them and tried to make sense out of the engineer garble that was to pass for instructions. Onie arrived to offer her suggestions after telling me the attempts to send week three had been a total bust. She could never get a connection. I see the early signs of the frustration she has felt in the past when the technology thing didn’t work under local conditions. Well, she can learn frustration right here with this inanimate object. With Onie offering encouragement I lay down in the mud and began getting the cover attached. It really was a neat way to cover the toad the way the thing went one, it would just have been a lot better if we had fit it earlier instead of having a fit now. Half an hour later and ten frost bitten digits the cover was on and looking good. Onie seemed to have forgotten about the tech problems and all that was on my mind was checking to see if my fingers would ever have normal feeling in them in the foreseeable future.

Inside the coach the Cummins had things warm, a little coffee, a little tea, a little kiss and we were good to go, and go we did, at 12:30, as in pm.

Nothing makes a man feel so good as when he is making time on the road, even if he is lost. We weren’t lost so I was ecstatic and Onie was glad to be away from “The Modem”.

The hills came up; the rain came down, the Cummins hummed, the Allison whined and the miles melted away beneath the turning wheels. We had calculated how much time we had to get to our rendezvous with Tracy and Haley and we felt we could almost walk and make it. The pressure was gone. We sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the ride.

We saw lots of great looking animal habitat, moose, caribou, deer, bear, fox, you name it but no animals. In frustration I looked at a particularly inviting pond, if you’re a moose, and said to Onie, “There has to be a moose in that pond”. She said, “There is”. I missed it but she saw it. We rode on listening to the rain and the tires on the road.

A few days ago we started listening to our CDs, in alphabetical order. We started with ABBA and are up to Cline, Patsy but we haven’t listened in the last couple of days content to just ride, visit with one another and enjoy the still stillness.

The day was growing long and we were growing tired so the navigator started looking for a landing spot. She settled on Summit Lake Provincial Park. We stayed here in ’01 with the kids. As we were looking for a campsite another camper who was leaving told us that there had been some thefts in the last few days and he had opted to move on. We mulled it over and decided that was a good idea. There was a commercial campground just down the road 25 or 30 miles. See, when you’ve come over 4,000 miles from home 25 or 30 miles is nothing. We would check it out. While we enroute Onie found a place, in The Milepost, where many animals had been seen and it was just past the commercial campground. There was plenty of parking and a good chance to see moose, bear and caribou. That was the place for us.

We pulled in to a large graveled turnout that could have accommodated 25 rigs like ours but we were all by ourselves. We put down our jacks, let out the slides and felt right at home. Wisconsin cheese, Vidalia onions and Cabernet made a great happy hour as we waited for hides to show up. They didn’t. We spooned our way through some Onie’s gumbo and waited some more.

The 357 miles we had clocked after starting late was taking its toll on me so I pulled on my nightclothes and kissed Onie goodnight. She had decided to wait a little longer and see if some animals would reward her patience.

I made my way to the bedroom where the sandman waited.

June 14, 2003-Hot Time

We were off the jacks and moving at 7:30. The sun had been up quite a while. Onie had stayed up late watching for animals, to no avail. I had turned in early and made good use of the time.

The sun was lighting our way today after several days of living under clouds and/or in rain. The temps were even up close to fifty so we felt we may have a heat wave in the offing.

Things were relaxed as we set off down the road with the speedo reading 35-45 mph. We were taking it easy as the road surface had deteriorated as well as having narrowed considerably. If we could make 300 miles today we would be happy.

Onie had heard about some hot mineral baths, Liard River Hotsprings, that lay in front of us and we planned to stop and indulge ourselves. About three hours later we were parking and donning our bathing suits. We may have been feeling a little unbalanced about now since the thermometer was still reading less than 50 degrees. With our clothes on over our bathing suits we set off down the .6 mile board walk to the hot springs, ever mindful of the signs warning us of the bear and moose hazards. Along the walk we tried to identify the 14 orchid species that thrive in the warmth of the springs as well as the many plants usually found further south but growing here due to the warmth of the springs. We found a few. We also found a pintail hen with ten ducklings. They were feeding six feet from the board walk, their bills working rapidly in the warm water as they sucked in the abundant water bugs, algae and microscopic creatures who thought this was their home, too. Oh well they were at the bottom of the food chain. No doubt they were high school dropouts.

The water was hot but we cautiously made our way in ignoring the smell of sulphur dioxide, rotten eggs. Once we were in it was great. My chest and head, which had been tight for several days, opened up and I felt like a human being again. Onie reveled. She loves hot water. I tolerate it. She loves it. The park people had placed concrete benches in the pool. When we sat on a bench we were submerged right up to our neck. By leaning back a little we could sink down to our chin. We did and it was great. Half an hour later with heads that were feeling a little light we climbed out, dried off and walked back to the Marlin.

It was lunchtime. We were famished. We finished off our bacon pizza, celery, coke and then had a few M&Ms followed by peanuts and almonds.

Twelve thirty found us headed north again for about fifteen minutes before we stopped again. A small herd of buffalo was grazing on the west side of the road. There were a few spring calves in the group. We watched and photographed as they made their way parallel to the road. I noticed some of the calves had some human characteristics. A couple of them were out foraging on their own, munching grass like the big guys but one, bigger than the other two, was hanging with mama, still nursing, not willing to go out and make its own way but rather look to the folks for support. I did notice mama gave him a halfhearted kick a time or two but nothing serious. She apparently needed him hanging around as much as he needed to hang around. No wonder Indians gave the buffalo so much credit for being a wise beast. They recognized the human traits there.

We held up traffic as long as we could, a two-lane road, before moving on. The sun was still shining and we were in good spirits. We had been well relaxed, well fed and seen some animals plus we were riding in ease.

The road didn’t improve but it didn’t get any worse so we felt we were ahead of the game. Just while we were congratulating ourselves on our good fortune we noticed a couple of rigs pulled over. We looked to the bar ditch and saw a black bear sow and her cub, feeding. We stopped. Onie grabbed the camera and begin snapping pics. The bears cooperated turning this way and that. The cub was doing what youngsters do, eating and playing. Mom was doing what mom’s do, watching, eating and grooming herself. We watched and discussed our good luck today. Then we moved on.

Watson Lake and a fuel pump were in our sights. Once there we lined up and waited out turn to fill up. Onie got a couple of items in the store while I pumped the diesel and then we were underway again.

Where would stop tonight would depend on our energy level at any given time.

The navigator announced a waterfall lay north of us and would provide a little additional exercise for the day if walked the trail to see it. We would be there in an hour or so. That sounded like a deal to me. We were traveling on road finished in 1998 and 1999 and it was so nice after the prior hundred miles or so. The drive was effortless.

Soon enough we were at the park, Mile Post 695.2, Rancheria Falls. The parking area was large and mostly empty. We shut down the coach and made the ten-minute walk to the falls. As falls go they weren’t huge but they were interesting. The water in the pool below the falls was very clear. We looked for fish but couldn’t see any but agreed that monster trout were lurking in the shadows if we could but see them.

The walk back must have been very strenuous because by the time we got back to the Marlin we decided we had driven enough for the day. We had made 297 miles since starting time and that was close enough to our goal, for government work.

With the generator running we put down the jacks and ran out the slides. Onie got things ready for the grill and made a salad. When the rain stopped, again, I got out the grill and cooked most of our supper, bacon wrapped scallops and corn on the cob. Onie scalded the asparagus, inside. When all was ready we sat down to our humble meal and washed it down with a little glass of Chilean Cabernet.

Now it was time for Onie to try her hand at Spider, again. I pecked away as is my habit. Later she read. I pecked. She went to bed. I pecked with Left Frizzell picking and playing in the background.

The clock says its 10:20 but I know it can’t be right. It is still daylight outside. I mean daylight. A blind man could read a newspaper without the help of a seeing eye dog but I’m out of here. I’m off to bed.

June 15, 2003-Happy Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day to each of you who wear the appellation, Father, Daddy, Dad, Pop, Paw, The Old Man or any other name that means you have offspring. I hope your day was as great as mine and I hope you thanked the mother of your children because without her you would be just a man and never know the joy of your children. Your children will be the next moms and dads and then you will know the joys of grandparenthood. Dad, please accept my thanks for the job you are doing with your child(ren). I know you are doing the best you can with your time, energy and money just like my daddy did. You have made mistakes and will again but that isn’t a crime and hopefully you won’t make the same one, twice.

Hot tea in bed started my day and then a breakfast of venison sausage got my motor running. We got ready for the road and left the falls in the sunshine and drove over good hiway into a clouding sky that soon produced light rain. We drove on and on over roads that were a constant surprise as the deterioration we were momentarily expecting never materialized but then again neither did the animals. When we had logged 194 miles for the day we shut down the engine in the Trail of 98 Trail RV Park in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. We were now less than four hundred miles from Alaska and so far we had sustained a broken headlight and a piece of trim was gone from the gravel guard. The toad shield was working well, yes my fingers thawed today about eleven o’clock, and we were now able to relax for a little while.

With the coach and toad resting on the gravel, really small rocks, surface of the parking site Onie and I walked into town. Our plan was to take a short walk to the visitors’ center and see what we could see. We walked. Then we walked some more. We saw a sign indicating an information center lay somewhere ahead. Shanks mare carried us further and we saw another sign leading us further away from the Marlin. We were both looking for the center when we saw a travel agency. We had left the rv park around three and it was close to four now. We were tired, thirsty and hungry and figured a travel agency should know something about town. We went in.

We knew that we wanted to see a show called Frantic Follies, tonight, book a trip to Skagway, for tomorrow, on the train and have dinner, tonight. When we walked in the two young men were unoccupied so we got some immediate attention. I laid out for them what we were after and asked if they could help. Yep, they could. They checked on tickets for the show for tonight, they were available. We bought them. They couldn’t book the train trip but gave us the number and allowed us to use their phone to make those reservations. Now all that was needed was a place to slake our thirst and sate our appetites before show time at seven. We asked for their recommendation. We were next to the Westmark Hotel, where the show takes place, and the restaurant was one of their favorites. That was great. One hundred more steps and we were seated at a table on the newly opened patio of the hotel. We were two of four guests. Our waitress was an affable young lady. Again we were not treated to her name or life history but just a polite request to let her serve us. We agreed and ordered merlot and a local beer. She offered some pretzel mix but we passed not wanting to spoil or dinner. The restaurant would open at five so we had almost an hour to pass. Pass it we did as we visited with this young lady who is working for the summer. She is a student down in BC studying nursing. The Yukon has no college of their own so the government provides a $5,000 per year grant for five years to students wanting to further their education. Since she is studying nursing and has agreed to return to Whitehorse, her birth home, she is given an additional $3,000 per year and a travel allowance to get to and from school. She is supporting 12 sled dogs that she has had since they were pups. She has a dogsled, which she used to drive before her dogs became too old, approaching nine, to work so hard. They have become pets even though occasionally one will find the harness and try to wiggle into it so it can pull again. Seems some dogs just can’t retire, like some folks. We learned the Yukon only has 25,000 residents and 21,000 of those live here in Whitehorse. The conversation turned to the hotel and its age, tourism in the Yukon, the local economy, the weather, winters in particular and then the new hospital. Lo and behold our hour was gone and we squared up with our lady and went to the restaurant.

Although the restaurant had only been open a few minutes when we got there a good number of diners were already seated. Our smiling hostess seated us in a comfortable booth. Filled water glasses appeared along with menus, in the hands of another smiling woman. While we looked over the menu selections she brought us some hot buns. We ordered our drinks and meals and then chatted while we waited. We also watched a table of four men and a table of four women, all with a tour, and tried to match them up. I never got anything I thought would work. I don’t know about Onie. When the meal arrived we knew the recommendation of the young men had been well founded. A dessert of blueberry pie and ice cream finished us off and I do mean finished us off.

It was time to go to the show. We waddled the short fifty steps to the theater doors. When they opened we sat on the front row, first come first served seating.

Frantic Follies is celebrating its 34^th year as the premier Vaudeville Revue in Whitehorse. It is gold rush variety entertainment with singing by a throaty vamp, dancing by high kicking leggy young women, spoofs, renditions of Robert Service Poetry with dramatic interpretation and a session with an interlocutor. The show runs about an hour and a half and is laughing, clapping and sing a long throughout for the audience. It was great entertainment and just what we needed to shake down our dinner.

What do you do when you are two miles from home nine o’clock at night in a strange town? If you’re in Whitehorse you walk home in broad daylight. That’s what we did.

When we were back in the four walls of the Marlin Onie watched a little TV. Lifetime can’t be found in these parts so she really mostly channel surfed. Perhaps when we get to the next cable connection in Alaska they will have Lifetime and she can get a real fix. I pecked away. When she went to bed she left the TV tuned to a western. It finally captured my interest and I signed off on the old laptop and watched the last thirty minutes.

June 16, 2003-Skagway Today

Today was just another day of long sunlight in the north. The sun rose at 2:40 am and will set at 11:35 pm.

We were up early too, say 6:30am. Yep, we missed the sunrise but then we usually do. We had a quick breakfast and then drove a few blocks to a shopping center parking lot to meet a bus from Pioneer RV Park. We had a date with the Whitehorse/Skagway narrow gauge White Pass & Yukon Route train. The track and train were visualized as a means of transport for miners, who at the time were walking from Skagway after landing from a ship, to Whitehorse. The walk/pack trip took weeks, the train would take hours. The driver was a fellow who should be retired but wasn’t. He was working part time but due to a shortage of drivers that is everyday during the tourist season. Drivers are hard to come by in Alaska because one incident of drug use bars one for life from driving for hire in Alaska. That is rather strange since Alaska seems to be in the process of decriminalizing marijuana. Anyway the guy had been driving since Moby Dick was a minnow and had quite a storehouse of knowledge as well as a sense of humor. All in all he was a delightful guy and a great source of information including local color. He pointed out where the track had run when the train still went to Whitehorse, where track builders had lost their lives when a ten-ton boulder broke loose above and came raging down the mountainside catching them unawares and squashing them like so many field mice.

Further down the road he stopped the bus, in the middle of the road, so we could watch a black bear feeding next to the road. The bear was content to let us watch from a few feet away. Then some folks in their late teens or early twenties stopped behind us, got out of their car and rushed toward the bear, to get a closer look I suppose. The bear had already filled up on roadside greens because it turned and ambled into the bush. Had it still been hungry the impetuous young folks would have been “bear bait” in the words of our driver.

We made a stop at Carcross, once called Caribou Crossing. The name was changed when a local Catholic priest’s mail was confused with that of an Evangelican minister in another Yukon town named Caribou Crossing. See, at one time there were some eight or ten towns in the Yukon named Caribou Crossing. The Catholic priest, who had quite a lot of stroke with the local authorities, and may have threatened them with Perdition if they didn’t accede to his wishes, decided that the first syllable of the two words would serve well as a new name. His mail would no longer be in danger of falling into unfriendly hands when the town had a unique name. The deed was done and Carcross it was. Well, the stop was delightful, serving as a chance to stretch our legs and do a little browsing in the local shops. As we were debusing I saw all the local merchants scurrying for the stores to get ready for all eighteen of the bus passengers. They had been talking in the little square when we drove up. Carcross sits on the banks of the Yukon where it is still a very young, tame and small river. It rises some forty or fifty miles up the road from here and has its beginnings in seven lakes. From here it wanders hundreds of miles before finally emptying into the ocean. Even though it is small here there are still traces of the days when it served as a port for goods brought in by paddle wheeler or other riverboats. We stopped in a large building that serves as a home for a few merchants as well as the local information center. Onie had a coffee and I had my usual, a diet Coke. We visited with a nice matron dressed in turn on the century, that would be 1900, garb. We each had our picture made with her while she filled us in on the details of what life used to be around here.

Back on the bus we rode a while longer before getting to the Yukon/Alaska border where we would board the train for the 20.7-mile trip into Skagway. We would be traveling down an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, one of thirty-six in the world. The Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty and Panama Canal each hold the designation. This railroad has been called the “Railroad Made of Gold” and the “Railroad to Hell” earning those names for the cost and the difficulty in building the trestles and laying the track. To the railroad aficionado it is truly something to behold. To the causal observer it is still quite remarkable.

This train was not the City of Chicago or the Orange Blossom Special but she was a special train. The engine was a modern diesel and the cars, while not new, had been well cared for and were quite comfortable even if the heating, which wasn’t needed today, was an oil fired stove secured to the floor in the front of each car. Adjacent to the stove was the reservoir for the oil and of course though the roof was a stovepipe to vent the smoke. Once underway it was obvious the track was laid in sections and not welded as the rhythmic click clack of the wheels going over the joints kept us company for the next ninety minutes. During that time we saw amazing scenery and descended almost three thousand feet into Skagway.

Skagway Alaska and the Pacific Ocean about 8 miles away, from train

On the train we met a woman named Jean. She was a good traveling companion as well as a good conversationalist. Onie and she visited about several things while I took pictures from the platform between the cars. As we neared the station in Skagway we decided to share lunch. The conductor/guide recommended a place called Skagway Seafood Company. It was a short half-mile walk from the train station.

Skagway Seafood Company is housed in a red frame building on the main road. It leads from the railroad station to the port where the cruise ships tie up. Often times places so well situated live on location alone not bothering to serve good food or have good service but simply relying on a constantly changing clientele to stay in business. Though the place was busy and noisy, dining tables are situated around a busy bar in the center of the building; a waitress greeted us before our chairs were warm. Her smile was as bright as the day’s sun and her step lively as a sprite. We gave her our drink orders and she soon returned to get our food selections. Onie and I shared a bowl of Clam Chowder and a plate of Halibut served as fish and chips. Though it was a plain meal it was fit for a king. We lingered for a while after eating and then went our separate ways seeking to support the local merchants.

Jean went tee shirt shopping and Onie and I went to The Red Onion Saloon, the most exclusive bordello of its day. The founder of Skagway, Capt. William Moore, established it in 1898. In those halcyon days the bartender kept track of the girls (Birdie Ash, Big Dessie, Popcorn Lil, the Oregon Mare, Babe Davenport, Pea Hull Annie, Kitty Faith, the Belle of Skagway, Klondike Kate or any of their co-workers) who were engaged by laying one of ten dolls on its back, behind the bar. When money came sliding down a chute the bartender knew the lady, in one of the ten cribs above, was ready to entertain the next waiting miner. In this way the miners were able to whet more than their thirst for alcohol. Here we enjoyed a little libation and watched the local girls work the customers. Today, to the best of our knowledge, the girls work for tips from customers who want to photographed with a lady in period costume. I took a picture of Onie with one of the Divas, no tip involved. The diva didn’t offer to be photoed with me. Perhaps I looked too much like one of the old time miners.

We did shop a little and managed to make a minor contribution to the local economy, nothing major, mind you, just a pittance.

All too soon we were called from these worldly pleasures and back to our tour bus. It was time for the return trip to Whitehorse. The long grade out of Skagway has claimed many a motor coach transmission but our driver and rig was up to the task. We ground our way up the multi-mile grade in granny and second before shifting into the higher gears and heading for the barn. During the ride back we saw two more black bears feeding next to the road. Once in Whitehorse we were among the last off the bus.

Now this may sound like a full day but truth be known the sun was still high in the sky. Back at the RV Park Onie grabbed her laptop and headed off to the modem. She met with success, that gentleman who awaits all who toil endlessly without falling. I headed off to Wal-Mart at my best walking pace to get a headlight to replace the one claimed by the rocks. After a brisk ten-minute walk I found that Wal-mart doesn’t carry everything I will need in this life. They didn’t have the headlight.

I walked back to the coach and consoled myself with songs by Left Frizzell and some milk and cookies. Onie couldn’t bear to see me so disenchanted so she carried herself off to an early bed. I stayed up and pecked away. I was suffering from disillusionment with Wal-Mart and sensory overload in general. We had been so many places and experienced so much my 19^th century brain was still reeling trying to sort things out. Throughput had caught up with me. It was time to move on, to experience the cleanliness of the unadulterated wilderness. Tomorrow we will be on the road. Tonight I will stay up and watch the sunset over Whitehorse, at midnight.

June 17, 2003-Movin’ On

We were up again, pretty early, to get showers and prepare to move on. I went to an auto parts house and discovered that I would have to buy a kit to replace the broken headlight. It is halogen. The kit comes with two headlights, thank you, and you get them both or you get none. They aren’t overly proud of these kits only charging $140.00 for the set. This doesn’t sound like much at all if you say it fast. Unfortunately I can’t talk that fast. I plunked a Visa card on the counter and walked out the proud new owner of this pair of halogen headlights. What ever happened to headlights that cost a buck?

While I was entertaining myself thusly Onie was off to the modem. She is so happy when the web thing works and so depressed when it fails her. Onie is truly a techy lady.

It was time to hook up and be gone, 12:15pm, but the Demco hitch wasn’t co-operating. We took a few minutes to do a little cleaning and maintenance on the hitch and then headed north out of town at 1:20pm. A few sprinklers and a little rain kept us company for a while. The highway that had been so good up until now held up for a while longer and then narrowed to two lanes with no shoulders and then construction began rearing its head. And there was lots of it. We saw no animals as we negotiated the hills and turns but apparently we had no damage to toad or coach.

When we had journeyed 195 miles to Kluane Wilderness Village & RV Park, the halfway mark, at 6:15p, we turned in and hooked up. The drive toTok, tomorrow, should be easy.

Following a quick dinner we watched part of the first DVD of Lord of the Rings. When our interest and energy waned we called it a day.

June 18, 2003-Dry Heaves

We are just making miles and time. We were back on the road at 9:10am. There was just a little construction early in the day but lots of dry heaves and loose gravel where the heaves are being repaired. These heaves, large mounds or bumps in the road, are caused by moisture freezing under the roadbed. This is a message to all drivers to slow down and see the countryside. We did and the first four hours we averaged 35 mph. At the end of that time we came to US customs. There was a short wait and a few questions, the most pointed one being about Canadian beef, of course we hadn’t any, and after the Customs Officer scanned our passports we were on our way. We were back in the good ole’ US of A and enjoying the Tok hiway. Alaska road builders must be better than those of the Yukon because there were no frost heaves. You know it does freeze just as hard on the Alaska side of the border as it does on the Yukon side.

If you think I mean the road was smooth you’re jumping to conclusions just like you did when you read the heading. The road was anything but smooth. It looked like it had been ripped from end to end and then put back together by just throwing a little tar and or gravel on the breaks. That is exactly what had happened. In November of 2002 an earthquake, that centered on Denali, ripped right down the center of much of the Tok hiway. The result was displacement of a few inches to several feet with chasms opening in the road and swallowing whole pieces of the road and in one instance the whole trailer of an eighteen-wheeler. Where this more dramatic and devastating damage occurred road crews had filled in gaping holes and then patched the road with asphalt or loose gravel. The results were not good but they did render the road usable. The road was hard to drive and hard on the coach. Just how hard it was on the coach we would learn tomorrow.

We covered the ninety miles to the visitor’s center in Tok in a little over two hours. Onie went in to get information while I returned phone calls. We had no signal in the Yukon and my phone now registered nine voice mails and more than ten missed calls. I was still on the phone when Onie came back with a fair amount of brochures. If we did everything she had info on we would be here when the snow flies but as usual she just wants the both of us to sit down and decide what we will do with our time. She also told me about some pictures of the earthquake damage.

I can’t ramble about things when I have no inkling of the event. This does not apply to my thoughts on politics, religion, raising children and questions of ethics. I expound quite freely on these subjects and many feel I have no idea what I’m talking about. Of course this is because they themselves are so uninformed. Had they read and lived what I have they would agree with me one hundred percent like all wise well informed folks do. At any rate I had to see the pictures.

Inside, the center had devoted a long wall to pictures of the quake damage. As I started to study them a middle-aged lady in the uniform of the day passed by. I asked her if she had a few minutes. Of course she did. Her job is to disseminate information. Many folks hereabout are summer Alaskans so I wasn’t sure if she was anywhere close when the big shake, 7.9 on the Richter scale, occurred. But she was. She lives near Tok having moved here years ago from Oklahoma, to escape the tornados, via Oregon. On the day in question she was at her sister’s. They were moving furniture. She heard a big roar like a rolling sonic boom and then the furniture began to move, on its own. They rushed outside and their two cars, parked next to each other on the concrete drive, were sliding back and forth across the drive as if a little boy was moving toy cars. Tall trees were swaying from the base, so violently that the uppermost branches were nearly touching the ground with each move. The ground undulated beneath their feet making standing difficult. The rumbling and shaking continued for seven minutes. Days later aftershocks registering 6 on the Richter scale were still being felt. During the seven minutes while the rocks along the three hundred mile fault from Denali to the Yukon border were readjusting themselves, several things had happened. In some remote uninhabited regions a displacement, uplift or drop, of up to two hundred feet had occurred. In other places it was a matter of a couple of inches. No deaths occurred and only one injury. A woman had been knocked from her feet in her home and in falling broke her arm. Due to the sparse density of the population, property damage was minor plus in Tok itself the town sits on a huge gravel substrata, which absorbed much of the shock. The visitor center building we were talking in had some of the chinking knocked from between the logs that make the walls. Doors were somewhat out of alignment but still opened and closed. Brochures in horizontal shelving had been thrown several feet across the floor but were now neatly back in place.

Two truck drivers headed east had their own stories to tell. One heard the noise over the rumble of his diesel. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw the highway opening up behind him. He tried to outrun the racing rift but unbeknownst to him the quake was moving at one hundred miles an hour. In a heartbeat the road was opening beneath his tires, he steered left onto the shoulder and into the ditch. The rift went by leaving him and his truck shaken but undamaged. He gathered his wits, dismounted from the cab and walked away. Today he is otherwise employed, no longer wanting to drive for a living. Another trucker was not so lucky having the rift swallow his rig, as I mentioned earlier. He too escaped but continues to drive. These are but two of the many stories of people who lived through the Big Shake. Statistically they don’t have to worry about another one of this magnitude for another 700 years. I did remind the lady that what that meant was another one could occur this November and then there might not be another one for 1400 years. She smiled indulgently and told me she had already figured that out but she was staying, anyway.

Having spread all the good news and optimism I could for the day I resumed my job, driving. We left Tok headed for Fairbanks. If I paid a little more attention to the rearview mirrors, than I normally do, you will understand. We can always leave when a hurricane is coming but we couldn’t outrun “The Shakes”.

The road on into Fairbanks was in good shape and we enjoyed the ride only having our serenity disturbed when the temperature gauge began to show a rise in the Cummins, on a long grade. I adapted to it and drove on. Later the rise occurred again on a less severe incline. Something good was not happening. We stopped to stretch our legs and Onie noticed some wet spots on the toad cover. Since it wasn’t raining that was a bad omen. I raised the cover to the coach radiator and looked at it. A small line of coolant was seeping down the back. Houston, we have a problem. We drove on into Fairbanks while I implored the Lord to not let us breakdown a hundred miles from nowhere. He heard my prayer and we safely rode into Riverview RV Park where we had reservations. The odometer had logged 385 miles today in ten hours. We stayed here two years ago and liked the park. In addition to nice amenities we could also wash the toad and coach, free.

Onie helped me hookup and then we went to wash the Subaru. Our neighbors had remarked on our beautiful black tow when we pulled in. When we came back an hour later they wanted to know why we had traded cars. I told them we had just removed 500 pounds of Yukon dirt and found a white car underneath. They went back to minding their own business and drinking their firewater.

Inside we had our dinner around 11 pm. We had lost an hour today due to time change so our bodies were telling us it was midnight. Our eyes were saying it was nine o’clock. Today had been a big day but tomorrow would be bigger. We would wash the coach, clean it inside and do our laundry. We figured ten or twelve hours would be a good start and we could finish up the next day before having our diesel generator serviced. Today was a warm up for bigger days to come.

June 19, 2003-Freedom

Today is a special day to many in our land, June Teenth. This is the anniversary of the day that Republican President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation officially ending slavery in the US. Many years later Martin Luther King followers said that freedom did not come to the freed slaves and their descendants until after Rosa Parks, Freedom Riders and others took active steps to gain parity with their Anglo neighbors. They may or may not be right but one could learn a valuable lesson from looking at Iraqis, today. A year ago they lived under the fist and heel of one of the most evil cruel regimes known to modern man. The US, Britain and numerous allies freed them from the bonds of modern slavery just as they had done the Afghans. Today people in both countries hate the US, kill our soldiers who remain there and in general don’t appreciate what was given them at the cost of Allied blood and lives. Going further back one can look at the French, if their stomach can bear it, and see a people who would be speaking German today had we not saved their bacon, not once but twice, in the last century. Perhaps the next time the Germans decide they want France we will give it to them. At least the people there will then have some legitimate gripes. Many folks would say that only when a person had worked for and earned, by the sweat of his brow or the blood of his body, anything worth having can he truly appreciate and enjoy it. A kid’s first car is certainly more of a treasure to the one who earned it than one that was just gifted to him by indulgent parents.

We were up today at 8. When we tried to go to wash the coach we found just how serious our problem with the radiator might be. The Cummins has a wonderful guarantee. To be sure they never have to replace an engine that cost a minimum of fifteen thousand dollars. Cummins loads it with lots of detection devices that are linked to a computer. If one of the sensors detects a problem that could lead to engine damage the computer protects Cummins. It shuts off the motor. It did this morning. We had lost enough coolant that operating the engine could lead to overheating and the attendant problems. I replaced the coolant with water so I could drive the six miles to Northern Truck Center, a certified Cummins service shop, and meet the owner. He would see if he could help us. When we got there around 10 he was busy, of course, so we loaded eleven days of laundry in the Forester and I took Onie to a washateria but not before getting a promise from Willie that he would look at the coach and get somebody on it. He did tell me to prepare to spend the night as his techs had other jobs in front of us.

After I dropped Onie and the laundry off I went back to the rv park and picked up our water hose, sewer hose, doormat, car wash stuff and toad cover. I had hoped that the problem would be small and we could be back at the park for the night. That wasn’t to be. I checked at the office and told them to rent our site, they had people standing there wanting a spot when I walked in so someone was benefiting from our situation. As the old saying goes “it is an ill wind indeed that blows no good”.

On the return trip from the rv park I picked p Onie with all our clean clothes and went back to the coach. The Marlin sat as we left it. A check with Willie told me that he hoped to have someone start on it later today.

Onie and I put up our clean clothes and then she turned to some telephoning and planning for Tracy and Haley’s stay. I went outside and spent a while detailing the toad.

It is awfully tedious waiting for word of ones fate so I worked steadily.

Finally a tech opened the access panel to the radiator on the Marlin, about five, shook his head, got some wrenches and started twisting them. At last work had started.

Life goes on no matter what happens and our tummies were telling us that no matter what ailments the Marlin had they needed some attention. It had been a long while since we had eaten Chinese food so we inquired about the best place in town. The best place in town wasn’t in town at all but thirteen miles away in North Pole. It was the Pagoda.

I drove, already we are learning Fairbanks roads, and we visited about our prospects for travel in the near future. Perhaps with a little luck we could be on the road tomorrow.

Dinner was a real treat. Our server, in her speech, mannerisms and walk, reminded us so much of our daughter Clair that it was uncanny. When she talked of her family and how much she missed them, they all live in the lower 48, it could have been from Clair’s mouth. I wanted to leave a huge tip so she could add it to her savings for her trip home but decided against it. The trip will mean more and the visit will be sweeter if she earns it.

Back at home around 10 we decided we’d had enough excitement for one day. We went to bed. The sun was shining brightly.